In an environment in which gambling is so permissible and pervasive, I do find myself thinking more in the genre’s terms.

With each long contract signed this offseason, I wondered where I would set the over/under in terms of the player’s games played.

For example, Xander Bogaerts (Padres) and Trea Turner (Phillies) signed 11-year deals. That is 1,782 potential regular-season games for each if the schedule is not disrupted. What would be the acceptable total played (let alone played well) that would make San Diego and Philadelphia feel these were sage investments?

Would you put it at 1,400 games? That is an average of just under 128 games annually for the lives of the contracts.

In many cases this offseason, teams stretched contracts — in ways they mostly hadn’t in recent years — to lower the average annual value for both budgetary and luxury-tax-computing reasons. It’s based on the theory that performance will decline with advancing age, so the investments are based on the early seasons of the deal.

For example, including the discount on the contract for the shortened 2020 pandemic season, Bryce Harper’s ongoing 13-year, $330 million pact with the Phillies will pay him roughly $313.1 million. Fangraphs’ calculation of actual worth for his first four Phillies seasons is $118.7 million (this is not a perfect formula, of course, but it gives some concept of actual worth), meaning that, to date, Harper is outperforming his contract..

Over the final nine years, will he be worth the other $194.4 million? He will begin this season on the injured list after undergoing Tommy John surgery. In addition, Harper will be playing his first season in his 30s.

Teams may say they know the contracts they’re offering will probably be prohibitive in the later stages, but how many organizations will actually concede and release the player at that point? Owners, obviously, hate paying someone not to play. The Mets will carry roughly $30 million in dead money (which equates to so much more with the luxury-tax implications) on their record-setting payroll after cutting Robinson Cano last year and trading James McCann this offseason (while still agreeing to pay the large bulk of his contract for this year and next).

But the Tigers, for example, appear to be going to the finish line with Miguel Cabrera on his eight-year, $240 million contract, which runs out of guaranteed seasons after this year — just when Cabrera has announced he will retire. Over the past six seasons, Cabrera has been worth minus-2.1 Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference). He enters his age-40 season in 2023, so no one should expect his performance to improve — unless he has an out-of-nowhere resuscitation, as Albert Pujols did, especially in the second half last season.

The Tigers could argue Carbrera held advantages in areas such as box office for a struggling club as he approached and exceeded 500 homers and 3,000 hits. But tactically, the Tigers would have been better served releasing Cabrera as a sunk cost with nearly any minimum-salary Quadruple-A type likely to do no worse and probably better than Cabrera did.

The future with these long deals will require each team to assess its tolerance for using a 26-man roster space on a faded star as opposed to just eating the money.

It will be particularly interesting regarding the third-longest free-agent deal done this offseason. That would be the nine-year, $360 million pact between Aaron Judge and the Yankees. How many of a maximum 1,458 regular-season games will Judge play during the term of his deal? How many will he play as a right fielder? How many will he play at his current MVP level?

Can the Yankees justify whatever they paid Judge this way — that they already have gotten so much for so little as to endure when that flips? To this point, Judge has earned $39.5 million in the majors. Fangraphs has him worth $288.6 million in that time. That leaves the Yankees ahead in received value at about a quarter of a billion dollars.

Judge also is the rare player who is worth so much to a team off the field in marketing, ticket sales, TV viewership, etc.

Judge has been leaner and more agile the past two seasons, and his durability has been excellent. Will that continue? He’ll be 31 this year, and there is little precedent for how a 6-foot-8 baseball player will age. Are we in an era when dedicated athletes can follow the Tom Brady/LeBron James model of body care to extend their primes beyond previous expectations? Or are they just non-repeatable freaks?

Both the Mets and Yankees have placed $162 million wagers in this area with an eight-year deal for Brandon Nimmo and a six-year accord with Carlos Rodon, respectively. The primary question for each is not talent — especially Rodon. It is durability. How many of a potential 1,296 regular-season games will Nimmo play? Play in center field? Play well? How many of, say, a potential 180 regular-season starts will Rodon make? Would you put the over/under on his number of IL stints for the life of that contract at 5.5 or less?

By far the most interesting can-he-stay-healthy case involves the most bizarre free agency ever — one spread over two seasons. That would be the six-year, $200 million pact the Twins reached with Carlos Correa, which could expand to 10 years at $270 million with health and success. Consider the Mets and Giants particularly interested bystanders. Really, every team and fan will have interest because his final contract is one so many teams could have fit into their budgets (health permitting). Will Correa’s problematic back and lower right leg endure so he can play well for a long period?

This is where we take the on-ramp to 3Up to think about matters tied to Correa:

1. Remember the greatest free-agent shortstop class ever? Well, a year later, how do we feel about it?

Near concurrently with the news that Correa and the Twins were in agreement on a deal, the Red Sox announced Trevor Story was undergoing elbow surgery. The likelihood is he will miss most (if not all) of the 2023 season with the less drastic version of Tommy John surgery.

Story lingered in the 2021-22 offseason free-agent class because so many organizations were aware he had an elbow issue that they believed would ultimately have to be addressed surgically. The Red Sox nevertheless signed him for six years at $140 million. To play second base. But also to be a security blanket at shortstop if Bogaerts left a year later in free agency. Which he did. But Story already was coming off his worst OPS season. Now he is going to lose maybe a season within the 972 regular-season games he could have played on a six-year deal. In what should be one of the prime years (this will be his age-30 season) of that deal. Disaster.

Javier Baez signed a six-year, $140 million deal with the Tigers after their 10-year, $275 million offer for Correa was rebuffed. Baez just had the worst season of his career on both sides of the ball, salvaged somewhat by a strong September for a non-contender.

Baez remains baseball’s Russell Westbrook — able to make you go “wow” for plays both scintillating and absentminded. His talent is abundant, but nine years into his career, his offensive approach remains poor.

The Rangers invested a half-billion dollars in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien and kept Semien at second. Both were good (Semien after a poor opening to the season) and durable. But one year of each of those deals was wasted on yet another Rangers non-contender. Now the Rangers have splurged again, this time on pitching, notably Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. Will that finally make them a threat to the Astros? That only feels possible if Seager/Semien remain as healthy and productive as they were last year.

And then there is Correa. Last offseason, teams shied away from him due to concerns about his back and his personality. He changed agents. He took a three-year, $105.3 million pact with the Twins that had an opt-out escape hatch that everyone knew Correa would use to chase a big deal and big market.

He had them at 13 years at $350 million with the Giants and 12 years at $315 million with the Mets, for whom he also would have switched to third base. But both teams paused due to concerns, notably about Correa’s right leg. He fractured his fibula in 2014 in the minors and has a plate in that area. The Mets wanted to lower the guaranteed dollars by half. Correa instead returned to Minnesota, and passed the Twins’ physical.

Correa has been a durable player the past three years, his age 25-27 seasons. He was young and talented, the kind of free agent teams invest in long term because they get several prime years as part of the package. The Phillies did that with Harper, for example. But the injury concerns negated that for Correa.

The next few years should be fascinating. Did the Giants and Mets over-cautiously walk away from a player who would have helped them for years? Or will their fears be validated?

How many games does Correa play during this contract? It is an over/under question that will persist for years to come.

2. Correa now has enlisted with the Twins twice when the options he wanted elsewhere — namely big market/big money — closed on him.

Is this the sport now? That the four East and West divisions in general, and the New York and a few California teams, specifically, are just going to dominate the free-agent market like never before.

Nine free agents have signed for at least $100 million this offseason. Seven have gone to the NL East, AL East, NL West or AL West. The two that didn’t were Dansby Swanson, who signed a seven-year, $177 million deal with the Cubs, the biggest-market team of the 10 in the two Central divisions. The other was Correa, who regardless of what he might say publicly wanted to land with a coastal superpower.

Of the top 24 free-agent contracts this offseason (those worth $34 million or more), just three others went to Central teams: Willson Contreras (five years, $87.5 million, Cardinals), Andrew Benintendi (five years, $75 million, White Sox) and Jameson Taillon (four years, $68 million, Cubs).

The 13 largest active contracts by total money guaranteed are all for players on an East or West division club.

We are watching the formation of the labor war four years from now, which will be not as much players vs. owners (though there will be plenty of that from the two sides’ history of hatred), but more than ever big markets vs. small markets and — perhaps — every organization vs. Steve Cohen.

If you ran the Marlins and were in the same division as the Braves, Mets and Phillies, why would you spend big money now on free agents? The odds are strong that they will finish fourth this year whether they stay as they are or add, say, another $30 million to the payroll.

How Correa ended up with the Twins was reminiscent of how I was told Rudy Gobert ended up with the Timberwolves. Minnesota is not a free-agent destination in the NBA, and the T’wolves decided that their free agency essentially would be acquiring a contract from elsewhere and probably having to overpay to do it — which resulted in their criticized decision to send major assets to the Jazz to land Gobert.

Alas, Minnesota looked better to Correa when doors slammed in San Francisco and New York.

3. And who is one of the Timberwolves’ owners? Alex Rodriguez.

I actually spoke to A-Rod on Monday when it looked as if Correa still could be a Met. Why? Because no one on this planet understood what Correa would be taking on if he became a Met like Rodriguez:

• The first attempt at a deal in an offseason had collapsed. For Rodriguez, it was a trade from Texas to Boston between the 2003 and 2004 seasons. For Correa this offseason, it was an initial agreement with San Francisco.

• Then a shocking pivot to play in New York, but only if he agreed to play third base because of the presence of an established shortstop — back then Derek Jeter in The Bronx, now Francisco Lindor in Queens.

• And if the Correa contract had been finalized, landing with the owner all the owners fear and/or loathe because of his willingness to spend beyond previously established bounds to chase rings — George Steinbrenner then, Cohen now.

In a phone call comparing his situation nearly two decades ago to Correa’s today, A-Rod said it was, “The greatest decision of my life to go play for George Steinbrenner and the Yankees in New York. I haven’t talked to Carlos, but I think Carlos would feel the same way. Going to third base, some people thought I was crazy. I thought it was a small price to pay to go play in New York to be a Yankee for George Steinbrenner.

“I think Carlos is looking at Steve Cohen and he’s thinking this guy is a dream owner. He has endless resources, endless passion. A lifelong baseball and Mets fan is the perfect storm. Alex Cohen [Steve’s wife] also is a huge baseball fan who loves Carlos and loves Lindor. I just think it is a family obsession to win a world championship and be part of winning a world championship. I think Carlos takes them over the top as not only an A-plus offseason, but arguably the greatest offseason in the history of the Mets franchise.”

Of course, the Mets did not get that A-plus with Correa going to Minnesota. That will be viewed as their mistake if Correa stays healthy. But did Correa also make a mistake by not getting to where he wanted to be regardless of the dollars?

To be fair, it is not apples to apples because Correa was without a contract until he finalized a deal with the Twins while A-Rod was still under his then-record 10-year, $252 million deal signed with the Rangers after the 2000 season when the Rangers and Red Sox agreed to a trade that would have sent Manny Ramirez to Texas. But for the Red Sox to take on A-Rod’s contract, they asked that he lower the value of his contract by $4 million per season for the final seven years in exchange for more opt-outs and rights involving use of his likeness. Though the total financial loss would have been far greater because Texas does not have a state income tax and Rodriguez would have had to pay tax in Massachusetts, he agreed to the trade.

The Players Association, however, negated the deal because it violated the Basic Agreement in that it lowered the value of the contract. Rodriguez forfeited nothing from his contract to ultimately be traded to the Yankees. The guaranteed portion of the Mets’ last offer to Correa was six years at $157.5 million — exactly half of the initial $315 million agreement — though with hurdles to make it longer and worth considerably more.

“I can only tell you what I was willing to do,” Rodriguez said, and keep in mind this was before Correa signed with the Twins, though A-Rod’s point remains pertinent to a New York-vs.-Minnesota decision. “And to pay a price that was net-net when it’s all said and done somewhere in the [mid-$30 millions] in concessions, looking at it now, I would have given up $45 [million] or $50 [million] to play in New York because of what I have been able to do post-baseball. When I walk around the world as a father of my daughters, I am known first as a New York Yankee. I am known as a world champion. And every time I walk into New York and I walk around near my apartment, when I walk with my daughters, you know, the firemen, teachers are still saying thank you for [2009], and that makes it all worth it.”

Over the years, Rodriguez has served as mentor, sounding board and friend for Correa. He remains a huge fan, which he made clear before Correa and the Mets parted ways.

“Carlos is a supreme athlete … a top-five best talent in the world. … It’s weird to think he’s underrated while he played in the World Series. … He’s a Gold Glove defender. And … he hits, he hits with power. And the most important thing, he hits great pitching, which plays very well in October. He reminds me of Bernie Williams in October. I mean, he just gets it done on the biggest stage and he loves the big stage, and let’s not forget, this guy’s a total package. He’s also valedictorian of his high school class his senior year. So he’s obviously very smart and he loves baseball. He’s a baseball rat.”